1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer programming and, in particular, to computer software for directly accessing information from a file system with a web browser on the Internet or on an intranet, without accessing the web server.
2. Description of Related Art
Current web browsers processing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) are all processed by a web server that retrieves the data and sends it back to the requesting web browser on the client. As shown in FIG. 1, when a URL is selected, web client computer 100 sends a request to web server computer 101 to get the web page from data base 103 (on a separate computer) and the web server transmits the web page back to the web client for display on computer screen 102. If the web server is not operating or network 104 is busy, then the web browser on the client system cannot access data that is controlled by the web server. If the web server is operating and the network is functioning, a delay in processing can be caused by having an abundance of requests for data made through the network to the web server.
Only if the client system has access to the data base or the data storage where the requested information is stored may the file be accessed directly. Currently, there is no way of determining whether the web client has access to the storage area, so the overwhelming majority of URL's are listed as HTTP.
Bearing in mind the problems and deficiencies of the prior art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for directly accessing information on a file system accessible by a web server without accessing the web server.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a program storage device which embodies an executable program which permits direct access to information on a file system accessible by a web server without accessing the web server.
A further object of the invention is to provide with the aforementioned method a way of determining whether the user has authority to access directly the desired file system.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method of accessing the desired file system if direct access is unsuccessful.
Still other objects and advantages of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent from the specification.